Broken English aside, the nicest part of this was the cheery music. Mind you, I’m not fond of shmups anyway, but this was a bit too short and light on interesting mechanics to be more than a distraction.

It certainly reflects the evolution of shmups, from the earliest forms where skill and aiming are important, towards the later forms where you basically hold down the fire button and simply try and avoid the hail of millions of bullets. Very authentic!

Accuracy has become less important in modern shmups, but I’d argue that they also require a helluva lot more skill. Fire up an emulator and try some of those early shooters – it’s like playing in slow-motion if you’ve spent the past couple of years playing games by Cave, or the Touhou series.

A point some might find interesting is that I’ve found a bizarre Korean MMO/shmup hybrid called Valkyrie Sky which in addition to adding Diablo-esque lootwhoring to the mix to amplify the addiction, actually mixes high-precision shooting and mass bullet dodging. It also has a very gentle learning curve, so even the greenest of newbies will just be able to work their way up to tougher fights.

It’s free, and it’s remakably good. Just don’t try to grind crafting skills unless you’ve got infinite free time. The shmupping is much more compelling. I’m currently working my way towards starting an RPS guild in it – RockPaperSigurd, on account of the norse theme.